a little Thanks-giving

[img]http://www.wikiloops.com/forum/images/thanksgiving_wikiloops_2014.jpg[/img]

Our american friends are celebrating thanksgiving day today,
so I felt it was the right date to express my appreciation towards all of you who chose to support wikiloops.com with donations.

Even tho I feel like I have been talking about few other things than the need for a budget for wikiloops this year, I know there are still quite a lot of people out there who believe it to be absolutely normal that things on the internet are "for free".

When I was a highschool exchange student in Tennessee many years ago, I had to take a class in "economics", and somehow one thing the teacher said has been stuck in my mind ever since:
"There is no such thing as a free lunch!" he taught us, trying to point out that any "free" items out there had some kind of catch to them. I have been thinking about that quite often.

Ever since I have a glimpse of an idea what kind of server cost a service like Google Search or Youtube will need, I have one very strong feeling:
There must be quite a big catch about those "free" services to fund that,
but people tend to keep believing the Zuckerbergs of this world are altruistic fellows.
I am not so sure about that to be honest.

"Our freedom is not free" is something I believe the current U.S. president told his citizens quite recently to justify spending tax money.
Somehow, this is true for a project like wikiloops as well.

When I spent some time with a tax counsellor lately to take care of the accounting for wikiloops, I could not escape the feeling that he could not really understand why someone would want to run a project like wikiloops, which simply has not generated any profits in three years.
Obviously, the fact that 18.897 people had FUN and that there are thousands of great tracks on the 'loops is of little economic value.
It is not of little value, tho.

I believe those who choose to support wikiloops have understood that and share this feeling of value, at least for the obvious part.

I guess its not that difficult to imagine someone must have spent a lot of hours programming this site and translating it into four languages.
Some may even register it will take a lot of time to maintain and moderate, and some may have an idea what the monthly cost of a audio streaming server with quite a lot of visitors will be.

The less obvious part is about freedom.
In difference to other "free" services, wikiloops is not snatching your data.
We could sell your email addresses, or claim your music copyrights.
We could tell your next employer how often you have been hanging around on wikiloops at four in the morning.
We just don't do that.
If you feel these are rubbish ideas, please let me know what you believe how the big "free" sites on the web are paying thousands of employees and servers...

There is exceptions - like the wikipedia for example, which is also asking for donations - but look at how the "new market" stock market businesses have been skyrocketing.
There must be something which they have been turning into free lunches,
but few of the lunch-munchers have ever questioned that.

Facebook just sent me a message today, it went along the lines of: "By continuing your FB use, you accept the new rules, allowing us to turn even more of your information into free lunches + profits."

If you have never received such a notice from wikiloops, then that is something you can give the wikiloops supporting members credit for,
and thats why I really felt like saying [b]THANK YOU[/b] today.






as always, todays wikiloops statistics of the day before I end:
18.897 members
24.192 truly free tracks